Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) accused recently confirmed Supreme Court justices of lying to Congress about their views on abortion and Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision granting a woman the right to terminate a pregnancy.
“This is government-mandated pregnancy and it is an outrage, and I think it really undermines and it delegitimizes the Supreme Court as a a body that can make decisions that are not just purely political, and Supreme Court Justices that, frankly, lied under oath when they were testifying to Congress on this question,” Jayapal said Wednesday during an appearance on MSNBC.
The congresswoman was reacting to news of a draft opinion leaked to Politico on Monday evening showing the conservative-majority court is prepared to strike down Roe. Republicans on Capitol Hill have celebrated news of the court’s opinion but expressed outrage that the draft was leaked before an official opinion had been issued.
Several leading Democratic senators peppered two of former President Trump’s nominees to the court, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, with questions about their views on abortion and Roe v. Wade during their confirmation hearings.
“It is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis,” Kavanaugh said during his hearings, NPR reported in a piece revisiting some of the conservative justice’s comments on Roe following Monday’s leak. “The Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case. It has reaffirmed it many times.”
Barrett, meanwhile, said Roe does not fall in a category of “super precedent,” NPR noted, which she described as “cases that are so well settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling.”
Both Kavanaugh and Barret reportedly voted in favor of the leaked opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, which would overturn the precedent they both claimed to consider settled law.
Other leading Democrats and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) have accused the justices of misleading Congress about their views on abortion rights and the legality of Roe.
UPDATED: 10:03 a.m.